


Too Long

by ivyleaguenerd



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternative Universe - Gender swap, Carlson is so delicate here, F/M, Mentions of past self harm, Oshie is a girl in this one thank you very much, mentions of scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25909291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyleaguenerd/pseuds/ivyleaguenerd
Summary: entirely based off of the song Too Long by Daft Punk. some of the lines are in the short, as you’ll see. maybe give the song a listen thru before or during to understand which lines.
Relationships: John Carlson/T. J. Oshie
Kudos: 11





	Too Long

Too Long - TJ + Carlson 

“Can you feel it?” TJ asked nervously, as she laid beside Carlson as he slowly stopped moving alongside her thigh. She regret not wearing some sort of shorts or pants to bed tonight, knowing that at some point her boyfriend John would find out about the mess she’d made of her thighs a while ago. 

“Yeah.” John sighed, and he scratched at his neck. “Can I turn the lights on?” Curiosity filled his brain, but his heart wept in fear of what he would be facing in the light.

“Yeah.” TJ responded flat, knowing this was a make or break moment for most. The scars either scared someone away, or stuck them closer to her side. Sometimes she assumed it was pity, but she’d been with John for 2 years too long to believe that extrapolated lie. 

“It’s been much too long,” TJ tried to defend before she was even sure he was looking, after the click of the lamp was audible in the silent room. Anything to make her look stable, sane, matured would help her plead her case right now. 

“Yeaaah..” John replied, his tone sinking as he gazed at the thighs of the woman he laid beside every night. He’d known about the possibility of such self inflicted scars due to her verbal brief explanation at a party, although drunken slurs of the situation at hand didn’t prepare him too well. 

He placed a hand on her thigh and tried to use his hand to lead her thigh against the bed, to flatten her out. She had laid with her back to him, cradled in his chest as per usual routine. The only reason he felt it was because he let his hand drift to her thigh to stroke it soothingly, before they fell asleep. She typically wore pants or shorts, and he’d never grazed them as she was covered up. 

“It uh, got the best of me, at the time.” TJ mumbled, as she laid with her chest and upper body propped up on her forearms. She stared down at the same set of legs that he was skimming, and she glanced up at him for some sort of reaction. 

“I know you needed it.” John barely spoke above a whisper, seeing the pain on her legs showed him how pained she had been at one point in her life. How badly she suffered, alone, at that. 

“Alright,” TJ went to try to clarify her mindset, to defend her actions and express the meaning to her choices but John hushed her. It was the past, these were previous behaviors. 

“Is this the most recent one?” John pointed at a thick scar, that was a little red at the light and raised. It looked to be pretty bad, not as terrible as a lot of the other ones he’d seen so far, though. 

“Yeah.” TJ nodded, and she traced over it for a second. She wished she hadn’t done this so many times. She wished it hadn’t all been so terrible. You could see from each individual mark, pretty much exactly how she’d felt. Some shaky, and ragged from anxiety. Some deep, and thick from anger. Some were thin and light, rushed and in a burst of emotion. Some were long and drawn out, depressed and somber. 

“How long ago was this one?” John whispered, trying to avoid showing too much of a reaction. He didn’t want to further upset his girlfriend, or scare her in anyway. In no way whatsoever did he intend on causing her shame for this, he just wanted to get to know what happened. 

“Uhm.. 6 months before I met you.” TJ murmured in response, finding it sad that the loss of the St. Louis Blues was the last time she had hurt herself intentionally. 

“The C1 seed knockout?” John asked with a bit of shock clear in his tone, his eyebrows furrowed a bit and his mouth was a tad agape after the query. 

“Yeah.” TJ nodded again, and she bit her bottom lip and fumbled with it in her mouth. 

“The Blues weren’t good for you baby, you know that and you knew that.” John tried to counteract her somber facial expressions, and he reached to her hand to hold it instead of laying it palm down on the scarred portion of her thigh.

“I just, rookie season or not, I was supposed to slam when I came down on the ice and I tripped and fell flat on my face. I bummed everyone out that watched me, and I played for the NHL, but not for a team that favored me or well enough of a season that deserved so much better from me.” TJ couldn’t help but shit on her performance for her 2015 year with the Blues. Nothing made up for that really on the end of the Blues, and nothing was excusable on behalf of those games. In her mind, at least, because no one else thought like this. 

“Teej, hey. No one at all was disappointed. We got you, and we got to see the best you available. You grew, you got better, you held that cup, okay? No one else deserved that cup in your place more than anyone else on our winning roster.” John took both of her hands in his now, and he kissed them. He held them close to his cheek, and he looked at her with the most sincere affection and care in his eyes. 

“I-I just, I wish I could have made a better first impression.” TJ added, and she leaned her head towards him and John caught it, thankfully. 

“Baby. You made an amazing first impression with us. Your hockey family, your team, your best friends and certainly your boyfriend.” John chuckled when he mentioned himself, and he smiled at her. He wanted her to know how sincerely happy he had been with her, and her skills on the ice and growth. She was one of the top scorers for their team, and she never failed to step up to the line when they could really use a goal. She tapped it in when they needed it most, and was able to bring it to the front when they needed to have someone tip it in. She was there when they needed her, which was all the time since she first arrived. 

“I did?” TJ had no awareness of how others perceived her, and barely believed that could be true. 

“Yes, absolutely!” John chuckled out, and he kissed her cheeks and all over her face. To make sure she felt the love he was trying to spread, he had to speckle her in all sorts of kisses. “The 2017 season would not have panned out the way it was if it weren’t for you! Okay, baby?” 

“Yeah, I-I just, thank you, thank you so much.” TJ returned the smiles, and she kissed him on the lips. A gentle peck to show her appreciation for the kind words he just assured her with. 

“On another note, and for my personal reassurance. You’re not doing this to yourself again, for any loss or gain. Not in the apartment, not in the rink, not in the showers, locker room, bathroom, state, country, planet, no more. None of this, okay?” John sternly spoke now, in a bit of his assistant captain voice. “If you’re hurting, I am too. I want to know, okay?” 

TJ hummed in response, making sure he knew that she was listening. 

“So if you ever, ever, EVER, feel anything like that again... I need to be the first who knows. Actually, I just need to know. At any point in time, if it comes from Alex to Backy to Wilson to Hagelin to me, I’m fine with that, as long as I know.” John nodded as he spoke, trying to add reference to the conga line to make her laugh a little. It got a good smile, so he was satisfied. 

“I promise that you’ll know, and if you’re not the first, you’ll be one of the first few to know.” TJ nodded towards him, and she held her pinky out. 

“Thank you, beautiful.” John smiled brightly at her, and wrapped his pinky around hers, completing the promise. His face lit up differently, like a lightbulb because he did in fact have an idea. “Before we head back to bed...” John held a finger up to show that he had an idea, as well. He was adorable, in his weird, quirky, all over the place kind of way. 

“Oh god, what’s happening now?” TJ chuckled, nervous to see what he wanted to keep them up for now. 

John leaned down to her thigh, and he kissed all over it. He decided that it’d heal better if it got some extra love. Assuming she barely gave her skin the time of day, or some kisses from time to time, it totally needed the extra love. He leaned over to the other thigh, and placed plenty of kisses all over the scars there as well. He bounced kisses back and forth between her right and left thigh, until she was laughing uncontrollably at how ticklish and loved she felt. The combination made for a decent amount of laughs, so he was grateful to have come up with the idea in time. She pushed him away and they had to take a minute to laugh. 

“I fuckin’ love you, Carly.” TJ sighed out after her laughing fit, so fondly staring at him and running a hand through his slightly flowy blond hair. 

“I absolutely adore and love you, Oshbabe.” John replied, and kissed her once more before laying his head on her belly. That was how they fell asleep that night, feeling so much better after the conversation’s end. 

-

“At last... the long wait is over... I feel it off my...shoulders.” TJ yawned out between stretches, the morning after their meaningful and deeply emotional conversation. 

John was barely even cracking his eyelids apart when she began mumbling, and he just loudly replied by yelling ‘WHAT’. Sometimes when players couldn’t hear one another, regardless of language, they would always yell the word what because the joke was that all of the Capitals were deaf. Apparently according to their coach, they were. 

“The long wait’s over... feel it off my shoulders... my mind is set so free, s’where I wanna be to get to the best of me.” TJ repeated, and she turned fo face him to place a gentle smooch on the center of his forehead. “Can you feel it?” 

“S’been too long, it’s good for you.” John replied without even processing the sentence spoken aloud, and he opened his eyes as he was pecked. 

“We’re gonna move, it’s good for you.” TJ giggled, and she grabbed him hand to beg him out of bed. Sleepyhead Carly was worse to hassle out of bed than Drunk Carly, but if she told Sleepyhead Carly - she’d never hear the end of that.


End file.
